OCR GCSE English Literature Paper 11 November 2021 question paper

Anita and Me by Meera Syal and The Football Factory by John King

Read the two extracts below and then answer both part a) and part b).

You are advised to spend about 45 minutes on part a) and 30 minutes on part b).

For part a), you should focus only on the extracts here rather than referring to the rest of your studied text.

Extract 1 from: Anita and Me by Meera Syal

In this extract, it is the day of the Fete. Meena’s mother is exhausted by looking after Sunil and does not want to go with Meena.

So I did not think I was being too unreasonable when I did suggest to mama, after yet another sleepless night, if she could maybe drop Sunil at the orphanage for a trial period. Her reply was to burst into tears and rush into her bedroom where she locked the door, and did not come out until papa spent ten minutes talking softly to her through the keyhole. He then pushed me into my bedroom and told me to ‘Stay there until you realise what you have just said…’

I was on the point of apologising until I heard Sunil laughing and gurgling as mama and papa played with him downstairs. Eventually papa called me to eat, I decided a grumpy ‘sorry’ was fair exchange for a meal as I was starving. But papa made me feed Sunil before he let me touch my food. It was a near impossible task, trying to get a spoonful of puréed slop into my brother’s anemone mouth. He was teething; two snow white stumps had appeared on his bottom gums and as he grabbed any opportunity to chew the spoon, I could feel the hard edges of two more top teeth grinding against the plastic. Mama and papa I knew were pretending not to watch me, but mama’s eyes were still puffy and I did not want another emotional collapse on my conscience. So I changed tactics; I tried aeroplane swoops, silly voices, pulling plasticine faces, I showed willing as a devoted sister although I knew a funnel and a pair of bellows would have done the trick, and all through my performance, Sunil clapped and laughed and refused to eat a morsel. Wordlessly, mama took the spoon off me and shovelled the food into Sunil’s waiting, open mouth, he ate gratefully, his eyes never leaving her face, they basked in each other’s adoration.

Then I knew what the problem with my brother was, he did not want anyone else except mama.

Extract 2 from: The Football Factory by John King

In this extract, the writer is remembering his childhood. He is on holiday in Southend, with his parents and his younger sister, Sarah. A dog is chasing birds, and the children are having a race.

I’m moving in front of my sister because boys have to walk on the outside of girls to protect them from traffic so they don’t get knocked down and hurt by cars and lorries and I’m stronger than my sister and other little girls and must never hit them because it’s a bad thing to do, but then I see a man in a black jacket with a metal dog lead calling him and the dog changes direction and speeds up a bit and when I look back to where the seagulls were they’ve come back again and now they’re sitting in the same place. – You both won the race together, says Dad, and he lifts me up in the air above his head because my dad’s big and strong and the strongest man in the world apart from boxers and people like that, though maybe he’s even as strong as them, I don’t know. – You’re both winners, he says, putting me down and lifting Sarah up in the air and she’s laughing but looks a bit scared at the same time, not sure what she’s supposed to do next. – Mind you don’t drop her, Mum says, and she looks worried as well.

But Dad’s like Superman with his muscles though Superman doesn’t have a West Ham tattoo on his arm and Dad doesn’t wear a suit and cape. He says he can fly like Superman high in the sky and visits planets in outer space when we’re asleep but I don’t believe him, I think he’s joking, and if I could fly like a bird I could fly with Dad as well but birds can’t go to the moon and planets and I wouldn’t want to go too far away because there’s no air in space and I would choke and maybe we’d meet aliens and spacemen who would use us for experiments, like people do with rabbits and dogs and other kinds of animals. Anyway, if he could fly then he would have carried us all down to Southend on his back instead of in the car and we would have got here much quicker and Sarah probably wouldn’t have been sick all over the back seat, but she might have fallen off or something and then Dad would have had to move fast and catch her again before she hit the ground and broke into small pieces.

a) Compare how family life is presented in these two extracts. You should consider:

• the situations and experiences faced by the characters

• how the characters react to these situations and experiences

• how the writers’ use of language and techniques creates effects.

AND

b) Explore another moment in Anita and Me where family life is significant.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro and Into the Water by Paula Hawkins

Read the two extracts below and then answer both part a) and part b).

You are advised to spend about 45 minutes on part a) and 30 minutes on part b).

For part a), you should focus only on the extracts here rather than referring to the rest of your studied text.

Extract 1 from: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

In this, the end of the novel, Kathy has driven back to Norfolk and is thinking about the death of Tommy.

I found I was standing before acres of ploughed earth. There was a fence keeping me from stepping into the field, with two lines of barbed wire, and I could see how this fence and the cluster of three or four trees above me were the only things breaking the wind for miles. All along the fence, especially along the lower line of wire, all sorts of rubbish had caught and tangled. It was like the debris you get on a sea-shore: the wind must have carried some of it for miles and miles before finally coming up against these trees and these two lines of wire. Up in the branches of the trees, too, I could see, flapping about, torn plastic sheeting and bits of old carrier bags. That was the only time, as I stood there, looking at that strange rubbish, feeling the wind come across those empty fields, that I started to imagine just a little fantasy thing, because this was Norfolk after all, and it was only a couple of weeks since I’d lost him. I was thinking about the rubbish, the flapping plastic in the branches, the shore-line of odd stuff caught along the fencing, and I half-closed my eyes and imagined this was the spot where everything I’d ever lost since my childhood had washed up, and I was now standing here in front of it, and if I waited long enough, a tiny figure would appear on the horizon across the field, and gradually get larger until I’d see it was Tommy, and he’d wave, maybe even call. The fantasy never got beyond that – I didn’t let it – and though the tears rolled down my face, I wasn’t sobbing or out of control. I just waited a bit, then turned back to the car, to drive off to wherever it was I was supposed to be.

Extract 2 from: Into the Water by Paula Hawkins

In this extract, the narrator Erin has returned to the river where her lost sister was last seen. She hopes to talk to the policeman in charge of the case, Sean, and so visits his cottage.

I went back just before Christmas. I really can’t say why, except that I’d dreamed about the river almost every night, and I thought a trip to Beckford might exorcise the demon.

I left the car by the church and walked north from the pool, up the cliff, past a few bunches of flowers dying in cellophane. I walked all the way to the cottage. It was hunched and miserable, with its curtains drawn and red paint splashed on the door. I tried the handle, but it was locked, so I turned and crunched down over the frosted grass to the river, which was pale blue and silent, mist rising off it like a ghost. My breath hung white in the air in front of me, my ears ached with the cold. Should have worn a hat.

I came to the river because there was nowhere else to go, and no one to talk to. The person I really wanted to talk to was Sean, but I couldn’t find him. I was told he’d moved to a place called Pity Me in County Durham – it sounds made up, but it isn’t. The town is there, but he wasn’t. The address I was given turned out to be an empty house with a TO LET sign outside.

a) Compare how sadness is presented in these two extracts. You should consider:

• the situations and experiences faced by the characters

• how the characters react to these situations and experiences

• how the writers’ use of language and techniques creates effects.

AND

b) Explore another moment in Never Let Me Go where there is a sad event.

Animal Farm by George Orwell and The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

Read the two extracts below and then answer both part a) and part b).

You are advised to spend about 45 minutes on part a) and 30 minutes on part b).

For part a), you should focus only on the extracts here rather than referring to the rest of your studied text.

Extract 1 from: Animal Farm by George Orwell

This extract takes place the morning after Jones has been expelled. After taking a tour of the fields, the animals look into the farmhouse.

Then they filed back to the farm buildings and halted in silence outside the door of the farmhouse. That was theirs too, but they were frightened to go inside. After a moment, however, Snowball and Napoleon butted the door open with their shoulders and the animals entered in single file, walking with the utmost care for fear of disturbing anything. They tiptoed from room to room, afraid to speak above a whisper and gazing with a kind of awe at the unbelievable luxury, at the beds with their feather mattresses, the looking-glasses, the horsehair sofa, the Brussels carpet, the lithograph of Queen Victoria over the drawing-room mantelpiece. They were just coming down the stairs when Mollie was discovered to be missing. Going back, the others found that she had remained behind in the best bedroom. She had taken a piece of blue ribbon from Mrs Jones’s dressing-table and was holding it against her shoulder and admiring herself in the glass in a very foolish manner. The others reproached her sharply, and they went outside. Some hams hanging in the kitchen were taken out for burial, and the barrel of beer in the scullery was stove in with a kick from Boxer’s hoof, otherwise nothing in the house was touched. A unanimous resolution was passed on the spot that the farmhouse should be preserved as a museum. All were agreed that no animal must ever live there.

Extract 2 from: The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

In this extract, on the day of the local fete, a village boy is able to see inside Hundreds Hall, a grand house owned by the Colonel, who has servants.

High up on the wall of the vaulted passage was a junction-box of wires and bells, and when one of these bells was set ringing, calling the parlourmaid upstairs, she took me with her, so that I might peep past the green baize curtain that separated the front of the house from the back. I could stand and wait for her there, she said, if I was very good and quiet. I must only be sure to keep behind the curtain, for if the Colonel or the missus were to see me, there’d be a row.

I was an obedient child as a rule. But the curtain opened onto the corner junction of two marble-floored passages, each one filled with marvellous things; and once she had disappeared softly in one direction, I took a few daring steps in the other. The thrill of it was astonishing. I don’t mean the simple thrill of trespass, I mean the thrill of the house itself, which came to me from every surface – from the polish on the floor, the patina on wooden chairs and cabinets, the bevel of a looking-glass, the scroll of a frame. I was drawn to one of the dustless white walls, which had a decorative plaster border, a representation of acorns and leaves. I had never seen anything like it, outside of a church, and after a second of looking it over I did what strikes me now as a dreadful thing: I worked my fingers around one of the acorns and tried to prise it from its setting; and when that failed to release it, I got out my penknife and dug away with that. I didn’t do it in a spirit of vandalism. I wasn’t a spiteful or destructive boy. It was simply that, in admiring the house, I wanted to possess a piece of it.

a) Compare the ways in which discovering how others live is presented in these two extracts. You should consider:

• the situations and experiences faced by the characters

• how the characters react to these situations and experiences

• how the writers’ use of language and techniques creates effects.

AND

b) Explore another moment in Animal Farm where the animals make a surprising discovery.

An Inspector Calls by J. B. Priestley and Brontë by Polly Teale

Read the two extracts below and then answer both part a) and part b).

You are advised to spend about 45 minutes on part a) and 30 minutes on part b).

For part a), you should focus only on the extracts here rather than referring to the rest of your studied text.

Extract 1 from: An Inspector Calls by J. B. Priestley

The Inspector has questioned Arthur Birling about his treatment of Eva Smith and now moves on to what happened to her after she was sacked.

Gerald: So where are you now, Inspector?

Inspector: Where I was before, Mr Croft. I told you – that like a lot of these young women, she’d used more than one name. She was still Eva Smith when Mr Birling sacked her – for wanting twenty-five shillings a week instead of twenty-two and six. But after that she stopped being Eva Smith. Perhaps she’d had enough of it.

Eric: Can’t blame her.

Sheila (to Birling): I think it was a mean thing to do. Perhaps that spoilt everything for her.

Birling: Rubbish! (to Inspector) Do you know what happened to this girl after she left my works?

Inspector: Yes. She was out of work for the next two months. Both her parents were dead, so that she’d no home to go back to. And she hadn’t been able to save much out of what Birling and Company had paid her. So that after two months, with no work, no money coming in, and living in lodgings, with no relatives to help her, few friends, lonely, half-starved, she was feeling desperate.

Sheila (warmly): I should think so. It’s a rotten shame.

Inspector: There are a lot of young women living that sort of existence in every city and big town in this country, Miss Birling. If there weren’t, the factories and warehouses wouldn’t know where to look for cheap labour. Ask your father.

Sheila: But these girls aren’t cheap labour – they’re people.

Inspector (dryly): I’ve had that notion myself from time to time. In fact, I’ve thought that it would do us all a bit of good if sometimes we tried to put ourselves in the place of these young women counting their pennies in their dingy little back bed-rooms.

Sheila: Yes, I expect it would.

Extract 2 from: Brontë by Polly Teale

This modern play dramatises the lives of the three Brontë sisters (Emily, Charlotte and Anne), who want to be authors. In order to be published, they originally had to use male names. In this extract, they are talking about growing up without knowing their mother. Branwell is their brother.

Charlotte: No mother. Can’t remember. Not a word, not a look, not a smile.

Emily: We were lucky.

Charlotte: Lucky?

Anne: How so?

Emily: She was not there to criticise. To insist on ladylike manners, pretty clothes and gentle speech. To organise tea parties with eligible men. We were allowed to read whatever we found. Whatever we could get hold of.

Charlotte: Our home, the parsonage, came with the job. If our father were to lose it, we would be homeless. Where would we go?

Anne: Who would we be?

Emily: We cannot imagine. This house. This place. This is our world.

Anne: The events you will see tonight belie the truth. The life we lead would be dull to watch. The cleaning and cooking, the mending and making. Each day the same as the day before.

Charlotte: On the floor is marked out the size and shape of our kitchen.

CHARLOTTE walks along the gaffer tape that delineates the kitchen.

Emily: Our books are covered in flour and spatters of gravy. The library have complained.

Charlotte: Not to us. We are not allowed to go there. Fathers and sons only.

Emily: But our brother tells us that a carrot peeling was found, lying like a bookmark, by the librarian.

Charlotte: Upstairs, Branwell has his own study. We three girls sleep together.

a) Compare how these two extracts present the treatment of women. You should consider:

• the situations and experiences faced by the characters

• how the characters react to the situations and experiences

• how language and dramatic features create effects.

AND

b) Explore another moment in An Inspector Calls where the way a woman is treated is important.

My Mother Said I Never Should by Charlotte Keatley and Yardsale by Arnold Wesker

Read the two extracts below and then answer both part a) and part b).

You are advised to spend about 45 minutes on part a) and 30 minutes on part b).

For part a), you should focus only on the extracts here rather than referring to the rest of your studied text.

Extract 1 from: My Mother Said I Never Should by Charlotte Keatley

At the end of Act Two, Doris, Rosie, Margaret and Jackie are clearing Doris and Jack’s house in Manchester.

Rosie: (re-enters, carrying a round wooden board; also the flashlight, which she swings around the room until the beam comes to rest on Doris ’s face. Doris has been crying.) – Gran?... Doris: Give me a minute. I’ll put my hat and gloves on. Rosie: Gran? Hurry, what are you doing? Car horn honks outside. Doris: Are they waiting for us? Rosie: (gently) You haven’t got any gloves…oh Gran. (Goes to Doris. A split second of hesitation.) Doris: Don’t kiss – Rosie: Yes! (Rosie kisses Doris. Doris strokes Rosie ’s hair.) Doris: Lovely hair…mine are all old grey hairs… Rosie: (holds up a wooden board) Look, Gran, look what I found in the spare room. What is it? Doris: Solitaire. Why, that was my mother’s, she gave it me. It’s a game. I used to sit and play it in the evenings, while Jack read the papers. You have to get rid of all the marbles from the holes in the board, until there is just one left, in the centre. Solitaire. Car horn sounds again. Rosie: Can we take it with us? Doris: Yes, if you want, Rosie. Rosie: Will you show me how to do it? Doris: If you come and visit me. Put your hood up, now, it’s snowing out. Rosie takes the Solitaire board and flashlight. She swings the beam round the room one last time. As they move to go, the sound of wind and snow increases.

Extract 2 from: Yardsale by Arnold Wesker

In this extract from a one-woman play, Stephanie’s husband of twenty-five years has left her. She is walking around the neighbourhood and finds a “yardsale”, a sale of used goods in the garden or yard of a house.

Stephanie: Go out, said my friends. Great! What does the notice say? (Reading) ‘Yardsale of the century takes place here. Sunday, 18 September 1986. Nine thirty sharp.’ It is Sunday, September 18, 1986, and it’s nine forty-five sharp!

Sharp? Why should time be sharp? ‘On the dot’ I understand. But ‘sharp’? On the sharp dot, maybe. Ah! Of course! Be here on the sharp dot of nine thirty. Only they dropped the ‘dot’. (Beat.) And it’s no longer nine-thirty. It’s (looks at watch) nine forty-six and forty-five seconds. (Pause.) Nine forty-six and fifty seconds. (Pause.) Nine forty-six and fifty-five seconds. (Pause.) Nine forty-seven! Sharp!

Why do I talk about time all the time? And why am I on time all the time? Was I too pedantic? Is that what was wrong?

(She ‘enters’ the yard, talks as she picks up and regards objects.)

And why do I come nosing around sales looking, looking, as though I was a newly-wed with a new home to set up, always the first one here, even before the owner of the yard where the yardsale of the century is about to take place, is up? (Pause.) Nine forty-eight.

And that’s how life goes and still no one’s here to say hello, how are you, welcome to our yardsale of the century, here’s a tired old coat-hanger, a three-legged chair, an old-fashioned mirror, an old-fashioned typewriter, an old-fashioned waltz.

(She hums waltz and waltzes a little. Stops. Pauses.)

Nine forty-nine! (Calling) Hey, mister, I could steal things. (Beat.) Trusting souls!

And what do we have here? A photo album. What kind of people throw away their relatives? In fact, come to think of it, what kind of people throw away their homes? You come to a sale like this and the question must be asked: why is all this discarded? Why should I want what someone else has discarded? What makes me think I could grow to love what someone else has squeezed all the love from? You come to a sale like this, the question has got to be asked.

Why do I ask? I know. You get tired of things. Even lovely things. I know. I had a husband got tired of me.

a) Compare how these two extracts present characters dealing with time and change. You should consider:

• the situations and experiences faced by the characters

• how the characters react to the situations and experiences

• how language and dramatic features create effects.

AND

b) Explore another moment in My Mother Said I Never Should where characters are dealing with changes in their lives.

DNA by Dennis Kelly and Eclipse by Simon Armitage

Read the two extracts below and then answer both part a) and part b).

You are advised to spend about 45 minutes on part a) and 30 minutes on part b).

For part a), you should focus only on the extracts here rather than referring to the rest of your studied text.

Extract 1 from: DNA by Dennis Kelly

In this extract, Leah and Phil are in a field, and Leah is talking about happiness.

Leah: Can you remember the happiest moment in your life? Beat. PHIL eats another Toffo. I know mine. I know my happiest moment. Week last Tuesday. That sunset. You remember that sunset? Do you? You don’t do you. Oh my God, you don’t. He says nothing. She opens the Tupperware container. Shows it to PHIL. It’s Jerry. I killed him. I took him out of his cage, I put the point of a screwdriver on his head and I hit it with a hammer. Why do you think I did that? PHIL shrugs. No. No, me neither. She closes the lid. Everything’s much better, though. I mean really, it is. Everyone’s working together. They’re a lot happier. Remember last month, Dan threatened to kill Cathy? well yesterday I saw him showing her his phone, like they were old friends. Last week Richard invited Mark to his party, bring a friend, anyone you like, can you believe that? Richard and Mark? Yep. Everyone’s happier. It’s pouring into the school, grief, grief is making them happy. They say John Tate’s lost it though, won’t come out of his room. Bit odd. Maybe that’s what’s making people happier. Maybe it’s just having something to work towards. Together. Do you think that’s what it is. Are we really that simple? When will it stop? Only been four days but everything’s changed. Pause. Adam’s parents were on the telly again last night. PHIL looks up. Yeah. Another appeal. To the fat postman with bad teeth. What have we done, Phil?

Extract 2 from: Eclipse by Simon Armitage

In this extract, a group of young people are waiting to be interviewed by the police because a girl has gone missing. This happened while they were watching an eclipse of the sun. Paul Bond (nick-named Glue Boy) has just been called as a witness.

Off, a voice calls ‘Paul Bond’.

Glue Boy: Oh well. Cheerio.

Klondike: Glue Boy?

Glue Boy: What?

Klondike: Whatever you know, get it straight.

Glue Boy: Like you, right?

Klondike: Right.

Exit Glue Boy into interview room.

Tulip: See the news?

Polly: No. In the paper again?

Tulip: Yes, and on the telly as well this time.

Midnight: News at Ten?

Tulip: Don’t know. I was in bed by then, but I saw it at six on the BBC.

Jane: What did it say?

Tulip: Said that they’d called off the search. Said they’d had aeroplanes over the sea, locals walking the beach, boats in the bay, dogs in the caves and all that for over a week, but they’d called it a day. Said that she might be thousands of miles away by now.

Polly: Anything else. Anything…new?

Tulip: No. Oh yes, they showed her mum and dad.

Klondike: I saw that. Him in the suit, her in the hat, going on and on and on.

a) Compare how the reactions to someone going missing are presented in these two extracts. You should consider:

• the situations and experiences faced by the characters

• how the characters react to the situations and experiences

• how language and dramatic features create effects.

AND

b) Explore another moment in DNA where someone is worried.